In the last installment of this series, we had just gotten married and set up housekeeping in 1971. We had a spacious townhouse near 42nd and Post and we had furnished it with hand-me-downs and cheap finds.
We had a pet cat named Sy. He was a good cat, but was a climber and insisted on going through the second story window.
Steve was working at Woolco in the Jewelry department and I remember him being upset with people for spending money on jewelry instead of buying a new coat or shoes for their kid. He thought jewelry was an unnecessary luxury for those struggling. I was teaching art in two IPS schools: Three days at school #3 on Rural, just north of Washington Street and two days at school #1, near 38th & Emerson. I had 1,000 students to see each week and was expected to give grades to over 80% of them. Schools were overcrowded at the time and I averaged 35 to 37 students per class. It was tough to say the least.
I remember our first Christmas we only had a handful of ornaments that I made and some old ones my parents gave me, that I repainted. I strung popcorn for garland.
I remember I could spend $12 a week on groceries and we ate well. I had been cooking since I was 14, so it was not a challenge, except for my picky eater of a husband.
June of that first year I found out I was pregnant. We hadn’t planned it, but were thrilled. We were busy with our jobs, so I didn’t rush out and buy anything really – and we didn’t have the money. I planned on having a big baby shower, like everyone does. I had quit the grade schools and got a job at my alma mater, Tech High School. Schools were still overcrowded and the Teacher’s Union went on strike, demanding to hire more teachers and we went door to door talking to families. The other art teachers in my department (8 of them) wouldn’t let me picket, since I was pregnant. They all got arrested and I wanted to be among them, so they could say on the evening news 9 1/2 teachers instead of 8 were arrested at Tech.
That second Christmas was hectic with work and family and I was tired all the time. I had to walk up four long flights of stairs at Tech twice a day.
Two days after Christmas, I went into labor, thinking I had a bowel blockage. I woke up Steve early morning and he rushed me to the hospital. Matthew Douglas was born just a few minutes after we arrived. I was only 24 weeks pregnant and he was tiny, only 2 lbs. 11 oz. This was way before neonatal units with all the fancy equipment. The doctor said if he could make it 48 hours, he had a chance, but he only survived 44 hours. It’s all kind of a blur in my mind, having a funeral for such a tiny soul.
The doctor said to wait 3 months and try again, which is what we did. I quit teaching, because it seemed too hard on me to carry a baby and work as hard as I did. I went back to Service Engraving for a few hours a day.
Luckily, Steve got a job at the Chrysler Foundry, right before I got pregnant the second time. I don’t remember who got him the job (maybe my Dad, since he worked at the assembly plant on 30th & Shadeland). The foundry was a horrible place to work. Hot sand and coal for the furnaces had to be shoveled. The furnaces were so hot, the workers worked 30 minutes on and 30 minutes off to cool down. They wore protective clothing and respirators. It was like working in Hell. The month before Steve started, two workers had been killed. One fell off a catwalk into molten steel and another was buried alive under the sand. But the pay was good ($5 an hour) and the benefits were the best, except the job might kill ya. To get overtime, Steve volunteered to clean out furnaces on the weekends. I’ll never forget him coming home completely covered in black soot. Only the whites of his eyes and his teeth showed!
I did get pregnant exactly 3 months later and was due at the end of December. I was determined to make this pregnancy successful, so I took vitamins and practiced Lamaze and was going all natural. Steve and I went to classes and were ready when the time came. Again, it was two days after Christmas and within 45 min. of the same time Matt had been born the year before. I had no medication and no screaming, just a lot of controlled breathing. Only three pushes and our daughter’s head was out (I remember seeing that big head in the overhead mirror). Mary Beth was 7 lbs., 9 oz. and perfect. We were so proud of our beautiful daughter and I named her “Mary Beth” because my grandmother was a Mary (Lou), and my mother Mary (Jewell) and myself Mary (Paula). I was going to just call her Beth, but Mary Beth has stuck.
Steve got laid off from the Foundry and got transferred to the assembly plant to make engine blocks. He was replacing two guys who had left, so the job was no easier. Soon he was laid off again and Mary Beth was 10 months old. I got a part-time job at my favorite craft store (Lee Wards) not far from our apartment. Steve got a part-time job at the Marion County Library as a clerk downtown.
Steve and I had a “sitdown.” I told him he was going to have to go to college to get a better job and that I was willing to get him through it, if he was willing to do it. “So pick something and get started!” IUPUI was the logical choice, since they had day and evening classes. He got a Pell Grant and started part-time that fall. He also got a job at the Arlington Theatre as an usher and I got a part-time job there too behind the concession stand. I loved the popcorn popped in peanut oil.
One of the other ladies who worked at the theater was looking for someone to house sit while her family moved (her husband’s job was sending him to Texas for 6 months), so we volunteered. We moved all our furniture into their garage and moved in. It was a three-bedroom ranch with attached garage and a dishwasher. We only had to pay utilities, so it saved us money.
After the family moved back from Texas, we found a half-double on Grant, between Washington St. and New York. It had two bedrooms upstairs. The rent was only $100 per month and that included gas and water. For the phone, we had metered service, so we got only 30 outgoing calls a month for $10. We would call the family, let it ring twice and hang up and they would call us back (that didn’t count as a call).
When we moved in our queen-sized bed, the box springs would not make the narrow curve of the stairway. I was not going to sleep in the dining room, so my sister and I decided to take the box springs apart, including the frame, carry it up, and reassemble it in the bedroom. Steve, my brother, and brother-in-law (who were doing the heavy lifting) would have nothing to do with these shenanigans. But it worked!
We had moved in the spring of 1975. When winter came, the upstairs was cold and we looked for the registers, which did not exist. There was no heat upstairs! We got a space heater for the baby’s room, but Steve and I were fine in the drafty front bedroom with three tall windows. My mother-in-law kept wanting to buy us a heating blanket, but I insisted that Steve gave off enough heat to keep us both warm. We lived there during the Blizzard of ‘78! I remember if we left a washcloth in the tub, it would freeze. We used a space heater to warm the bathroom before baths.
Our landlord lived on the other side of the double and was slightly crazy. He would call the police if a child crossed his lawn. We got used to him and lived there over three years.
We lived very frugally, but one summer we took a vacation to the Smoky Mountains, when Mary Beth was 2 ½ years old. We stayed in the tiniest motel room I have even seen. While driving around looking at the scenery, Steve needed a potty break, so we stopped at an empty parking lot at one of the lookouts and he wandered off into the woods, while I stayed in the car with Mary Beth. As he was doing his business, he thought to himself, “you know this is bear country” and just then he saw a little bear cub’s head pop up, and then another, and then the mother bear! He came running out of the woods! I saw him coming and grabbed the movie camera and got footage of him running to the car and believe it or not he dove through the open car window. (Mary Beth says this story is her first memory.)
Steve had so many part-time jobs during these school years, I can’t remember them all. One I remember, with a great story, was his time as maintenance man at the Murat Temple. His dad was a Shriner in the Oriental Band and Steve was working the Shrine Circus at the fairgrounds. He was holding a door open between buildings, so the elephants could walk thru, when one charged him and knocked him off his feet over a sawhorse and off a ramp. He dislocated his shoulder and his Dad drove him to the ER, wearing his Oriental Band outfit with turban and curly slippers. When he told the doctor he got run off by an elephant, the Doctor asked “was it pink or blue?”
Part 4: We buy a house in
Irvington!
